Copper mesh

[CrazyKiln]

I have been experimenting with copper mesh and love the colours but I always end up with bubbles. Most of the time this is ok but now want to make some larger pieces and I don't really want bubbles forming. The bubbles aren't particularly large, just clumped together. Are bubbles just inevitable with mesh? I have slowed my fusing programme down from my usual full fuse programme but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm firing in a Skutt Firebox and the last schedule I used was:

Seg 1 222 to 450 10 mins hold
Seg 2 170 to 677 60 mins hold
Seg 3 330 to 795 10 mins hold
Seg 4 9999 to 482 60 mins hold
Seg 5 83 to 371 End.

Thanks very much

[Zeldazog]

Do you mean bubbles trapped within the mesh or a heap of bubbles?

It's quite difficult to avoid bubbles with something like mesh - indeed, one method of creating uniform bubbles is to effectively create your own mesh grid with criss-cross grids of glass....  air is bound to get trapped in the mesh holes.

Assuming you're doing segment 2 as a bubble squeeze, it's possibly a bit too fast - if you were making a big piece, your initial rate of climb may only be 166dph - so perhaps you need to consider the bubble squeeze to be something slower than this?

Try looking at the Bullseye Technotes, you might find 'Volume and Bubble Control' and 'Heat & Glass' helpful.

[CrazyKiln]

The bubbles are trapped within the mesh but clustered together. I was expecting some bubbles as I realised the mesh would trap air, but I was expecting them to be smaller.
I'll try firing much slower and see what happens and thanks for the tip re Bullseye sheets -I never remember they exist.
Thanks very much.

[flame n fuse]

if you laid a few clear stringers over your mesh area, leading to the edge of the piece, would it give the bubbles time to escape?

[shafeenan]

I'm a total novice, so you might want to ignore this but I read somewhere that if you place stringers around the edges of your work (can be clear) leaving some gaps at the corners, it gives the air more time to escape. don't know if they would be high enough for your mesh, but the principal might be sound?

[marklaird]

When I was on a course at Warm Glass the tutor suggested putting a fine layer of clear glass powder before you put on the top layer of glass. The glass powder fills in more of the holes and then hopefully traps less air.

Hope this works.

Mark